Data processing techniques for airport surveillance radar weather sensing

Discusses data processing techniques that can provide high quality, automated weather information using the FAA's existing Airport Surveillance Radars (ASR-9). The cost of modifying the ASR-9 is significantly less than that for deployment of the dedicated terminal Doppler weather radar. These techniques have been implemented on a prototype ASR-9 weather surveillance processor (WSP) and have been tested operationally at the Orlando, FL and Albuquerque, NM air traffic control towers. The key to the success of this system has been the development of innovative data processing techniques that accommodate the non-optimum parameters of the ASR as a weather sensor. The authors motivate the development of the ASR-9 WSP system and describe in detail the data processing techniques that have been employed to achieve an operationally useful capability. They provide an overview of the WSP and the ongoing system development and test program. They provide specifics on the data processing algorithms that have been key to successful implementation of this capability.